


A Guide's Guide to Being a Guide

by sweetmars03



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angel Radio (Supernatural), Human AU, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but also not really, but not really, is crashing your soulmate's car a meet cute?, who knows? not me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24064330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetmars03/pseuds/sweetmars03
Summary: In a world where the name on your arm corresponds not to your soulmate but to the person who will introduce you to them, Dean's guide, Charlie, listens to a radio show and becomes convinced the announcer is her charge's soulmate. Meanwhile Castiel Novak, working alongside with his siblings in their family's radio station, wonders how much longer his brother, Gabriel, is going to take to introduce him to his soulmate.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 20
Kudos: 161





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sometime ago I came up with the concept where there were soulmates but your soulmate identifying mark wouldn't lead you to your soulmate but rather the person who will help you find them. At the same time I became annoyed that I hadn't found any stories where Angel Radio was an actual radio station run by the Novak family and so I made this.

Dean had met Charlie during his first and only year at college. It was nearing the end of the second semester and Dean had already come to the conclusion that this really wasn’t up his alley. He’d agreed to complete the semester, but only for Sammy’s sake, and he was already looking for a job in a nearby garage with a friend of his father.

He’d never been sure what compelled him to go to the party, he always tried to refrain from believing that things like destiny and fate worked quite so explicitly; but he’d only received the invitation in passing from a kinda acquaintance. He was certain he’d be unable to recognize more than a couple of faces and that even less would recognize him.

Still, free booze was free booze, and Dean had nothing else to do that weekend or so he was trying to convince himself.

The redheaded chick typing away like she had lightning in her fingers at the lonely and forgotten couch caught Dean’s eye for some reason. He’d been here the time it took him to work through three bottles of beer and yet she hadn’t moved once.

While everyone else was busy getting shitfaced, slobbering all over each other and or doing what they must’ve thought was an alluring and captivating dance routine but was more accurately described as a wet squirrel trying to shake itself dry, Little Miss Clickety Clack had been sitting quietly on the old beat up couch, her computer nestled on her lap; even when a few minutes prior she had been sharing said couch with a pair of horny party goers grinding on each other and earlier still when a beer bottle went sailing over her head and into the next room, shattering against the wall.

Dean shrugged, thinking to himself: ‘what’s the harm in getting a name?’, as he took a swig from his beer and made his way over. He plopped himself beside her and glanced over at the screen only to find it was completely dark. He watched her fingers fly over the keys as she answered his question before he was fully done processing it.

“It’s quite the useful configuration isn’t it? Reflects the light in a way that can only be seen from a certain angle.” She had said this without looking up, but now she did, directing her gaze at Dean and giving him a once over.

“If you’re interested in sleeping with me I will have you know that I’m gay and taken.” Dean was intrigued by her forwardness.

“Nah,” He assured her as he took a sip from his beer. Apparently satisfied by his answer she returned her attention back to her screen and whatever it was she could see from it.

“So then what brings you round, Mr. Tipsy?”

“Could ask you the same thing.” Dean said back, feeling strangely at ease despite the odd conversation with the even odder stranger. “Least I’m acting like I wanna be here, you ain’t even trying. Why’d you come out?”

“I didn’t.” She answered simply.

When Dean was unable to puzzle out the answer for himself she rolled her eyes. “I live here. And just cause my asshole of a roommate wants to throw a weak version of a frat party doesn’t mean I’m moving from my favorite spot on the couch.”

Dean hummed, ready to leave the stranger alone. Clearly she had better things taking up her time. He got up with a grunt turning back just before he walked away.

“Just for validity’s sake, what’s your name?”

She shook her hair out of her face slightly as she looked up to him, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards into a half smirk.

“Charlie.”

Dean almost fell over on his ass right then and there.

“You’re shitting me!” It came out loud and rushed and incredulous and it made the redhead raise an eyebrow.

“Nope, last time I checked I legally changed it to Charlie.” She tried for a bit of humor but Dean was practically ripping his sleeve off his forearm to show her something and it took her a moment as she leaned over for a closer look for realization hit her.

“Ohhhh.”

It was the only thing she could think to say as she stared at her name, written in the messy chicken scrawl she called handwriting over the length of Dean’s forearm, the ‘r’ even slightly offset as she had taken to doing in the past couple of months.

“You’re… you’re my guide.”

~

“What’s up bitches?”

Dean groaned loudly from his place under the car’s engine. He tilted his head back until his skull rested on the floor and he could see Charlie’s heavy combat boots at the very edge of his vision through the sliver of light between the car and the floor. He dragged himself out from under the vehicle to greet his friend.

“You don’t sound too happy to see me Dean?” Her voice was patronizing as she pouted mockingly and she held up a take out bag from Dean’s favorite burger joint across town. Dean’s stomach grumbled but he refused to be so easily manipulated.

Until he caught sight of the six pack she held in her other hand and suddenly Dean was ready to be play-doh.

They sat down to have lunch at the counter, completely ignoring all of Bobby’s rules as Charlie chatted him up incessantly about her latest LARPing adventure.

“So there I was, cornered by like half the Dark Moon army with only two guards at my side thinking ‘Fuck it, if this is how I go down, I’m taking your smug ass looks with me’. When all the sudden Glinda shows up with a spell that decimates half the army to smithereens and gives us time to book it. Told me she practically had to sell a kidney to get it and run over to where they were ambushing me. The Dark Moon King was pissed.”

Dean’s only half listening. It’s not like he doesn’t like roleplaying or Charlie’s company, it’s just he’s had a lot on his mind lately and, yeah, most of it concerns Charlie. Or well, the person Charlie’s supposed to lead him to.

Dean knew not to get his hopes up too high when he’d first met Charlie. It’s not like meeting your guide meant you’d immediately find your soulmate. While there were some extraordinary cases of guides finding their charges’ soulmates insanely fast, the world record being a whopping three days, most people just weren’t that quick.

Dean knew the average time for a guide to locate your soulmate was between 9-12 months.

But Charlie was pushing nearly two years with shit all to say about who his soulmate was.

Dean tried not to let his frustration be quite so obvious but Charlie, damn her, was practically made to pick up on his emotions. She gave him an unimpressed look.

“Dean, we’ve talked about this.” She said, her voice bordering on annoyed.

“It’s been two years, Charlie-” Dean tried to argue but Charlie interrupted him mid-sentence.

“It ain’t my fucking fault if I can’t find them. I don’t control fate, Dean, I can just see it coming.”

He tried to muffle his grumble of protest under a swig of beer but that only made him choke. Rather than getting up to help him Charlie nearly fell over onto her ass laughing at him as he snorted beer out of his nose.

That was unpleasant.

After he’d managed to get his breathing under control again he glared at Charlie, flicking a fry at her which she ably dodged, the last bit of laughter still spilling from her lips as she gazed at Dean with mirth in her eyes.

It was a couple of seconds later that she sobered up and leveled a hard stare at him.

“It’s not like I’m not looking, Dean. I just ain’t finding much.”

“Ain’t finding shit.” Dean muttered darkly under his breath. Charlie swiped at him but he leaned back.

“Hey, I’ve told you about a couple nudges I’ve had!”

“Yeah and to quote you they were: ‘in all practical senses nonexistent and most probably a misplaced sneeze on your part.’” He said, remembering the last time, when she had told him that he might wanna approach the brunette at the other side of the club who as it turned out already had her soulmate introduced to her and found Dean’s advances insulting enough to merit a slap. 

Her company, a tiny blond man who happened to find the encounter hilarious held her back from continuing her assault on Dean.

“Gabriel.” She growled. But the man just laughed and began leading her away, even as he threw several curious glances over his shoulder at Dean. 

“Come on now, Hannah, we’ve all been there.”

Dean came back to the present just in time to hear Charlie go off on him.

“So what? I’ve told you it might just be that we’re in the wrong place. I’ve suggested a change of scenery multiple times. For all we know your soulmate lives in Canada and we’re dawdling around here like idiots.”

“Number one, I’m not gonna prance around half the continent with you if you don’t even know where you are going and number two,” At this he paused trying to force down the chuckle coming out of his mouth. “Canada? Was that seriously the best you could come up with? You really think I’m gonna marry a lumberjack?” Charlie shrugged relieved that the conversation was livening up again.

“You never know? You could be destined to a big hairy ax swinging bear in the land of maple syrup and hockey.”

And with that the conversation was over, Dean sweeping the counter down for evidence that they had ever been there and returning to his work, Charlie sauntering over to the waiting area to work on whatever it was that the girl got up to in her free time.

It was a regular afternoon for them, Dean cursing at a car’s engine and Charlie trying to find new and improved ways to distract and bother him while he worked.

Recently she had discovered that playing obscure radio stations was an easy way to rattle Dean’s nerves exactly right. There was a wide variety to choose from, from dusty old classical stations, to incredibly boring and infuriatingly conservative political talk shows. Sometimes she stayed up late looking for the perfect one to drive Dean up the wall.

But Dean seemed to be in an astonishingly zen mood today, especially considering the conversation they’d just had, and the pompous asshole narrating a show dog competition just wasn’t cutting it.

Sighing, she pulled the radio closer to her by the cord and began flipping through stations without much hope that she’d find anything properly irritating. The snippets she’d lend her ear to got shorter and shorter at the same rate as her patience did. And then she stopped.

She wasn’t sure why she let the end of a ridiculously vanilla pop song about believing in the power of love that had to be written by the sappiest guide on the planet play out over the speakers. Sure, Dean wouldn’t be thrilled by the choice of music but she was fairly certain she could do better than that.

However something deep inside her compelled her not to change the station yet, a feeling simultaneously new and yet familiar.

Just as she was about to discard the weird moment altogether and change the station, the DJ’s deep gravelly voice spoke out.

The radio fell to the floor with a clatter that made Dean jump and hit his head.

“Fuck!”

But his loud curse was lost among Charlie’s incoherent shrieks. Dean scrambled out from under the car, wielding a wrench, eyes wild as he searched for whatever was attacking Charlie. Rather than a chainsaw wielding murderer trying to chop up his friend, Dean found Charlie up on the counter like the floor was made of lava, staring at the radio with a wide haunted gaze.

“It- it’s him! That’s him!”

Charlie nearly fell over as she waved her arms around wildly.

Dean stared at her, incredibly lost for a moment before looking down at the radio.

“Next up, She Knew It Was You, on your favorite: Angel Radio.”

Dean paused for a moment. Damn. That had to be quite the man. Before Dean was done salivating over the mental picture he was already casting, Charlie had leaped down from the counter and nearly tackled him to the ground.

He grunted from the force of the impact but by the time he’d managed to steady himself and Charlie, his guide had already taken him by the shoulders and was brutally shaking him back and forth, screaming in his face

“That’s him, that’s the bitch, I’m sure of it!”

Dean gripped Charlie by the waist and bodily hauled her off of him, setting her down a couple of feet away.

“Breathe.” He instructed firmly, but Charlie had already run off to her car, nearly slamming into the door as she yanked it open and tore her bag in her hurry to free her computer from it’s confines. She barely noticed as she threw herself down into the seat and began typing, going so fast she had to go back and rewrite large chunks of it twice before hitting enter so hard Dean feared for the state of the keyboard.

He walked over as her eyes scanned the results ridiculously fast and then modified her search, repeating the process a few more times before squeaking in triumph. He had stopped just outside the door and was about to lean in to try and see what it was that had her so riled up when she shoved the screen at his face.

“That one.”

He pushed the computer away from him huffing at Charlie before sighing and turning to see what had lit a fire under his friend’s ass.

On screen was a live stream of a recording booth, painted white and pastel blue. Within it there were two people. A blond man that looked vaguely familiar sucking on a disturbingly large lollipop and-

Oh…

Wow.

Dean had seen quite the lineup of men in his life but never someone quite like this, with brilliant blue eyes that looked like they belonged on a Sad Sam rather than an actual person, tousled pitch black hair that left Dean with a very clear image of what this guy would look like rolling out of bed after sex, plump pink lips, a strong jaw with just the right amount of five o’clock shadow. Dean thought he was looking at an angel.

“Earth to Winchester!” Charlie said loudly, waving her hand in front of his face. He blinked owlishly, turning to face Charlie’s shit eating grin.

“I’ll wait for the praise.” She said, practically preening.

Dean raised an eyebrow high up on his forehead.

“You’re trying to tell me that you’ve spent two years pulling jack on my soulmate and all of the sudden you hear a twenty second clip of a guy’s voice and decide he’s definitely the one?” Charlie made a loud obnoxious noise with her mouth as she took her laptop back and began searching for something.

“I don’t make the rules. Seriously, Dean, people learn about this in like third grade.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean said dismissively, waving her off. “You’re one to talk. Have you ever taken a single class for guides?”

Charlie paused to glare at him. “I told you, I passed the online course with flying colors.”

“And yet you refuse to let me see your diploma.”

With a huff Charlie turned away and repeated the same methodical answer she always had. “The printing code expired.”

“See that’s how I know you’re bullshitting me. You could get the printing code for the President’s birth certificate from the White House.”

Charlie ignored him in favor of reading out loud from the Wikipedia page she had pulled up.

“Angel Radio is a moderately popular radio station owned and run by the Novak family. Initially an evangelist station running children’s programming, it was acquired by Chuck Novak in 1999 and revamped as a pop music station. It had a small surge in popularity in 2015 when one of the announcers, Gabriel Novak, ran a contest, wherein callers would introduce themselves and he would rate them on a scale of one to a hundred for the probability of being his charge’s soulmate- Well, would you look at that, Dean, they might as well start advertising themselves as a matchmaking service.”

“Hardy har.” Dean said flatly, leaning closer so that he could see as well. Sue him, he’s curious.

Charlie’s reading from the list of broadcasters, eyes flicking back and forth as she pairs their names up with the faces from a family picture.

“Aha!”

Two clicks later the extremely short wiki page for Castiel Novak had been brought up, including the absolutely stunning picture it had, a close up of his face severe and disciplined.

It took him a moment to realize Charlie was talking, spouting off the scarce few gems of information on him.

“Single but guided, 26, D-list celebrity, works full time at family’s radio station based in- fucking, I told you we needed to move!”

While Charlie was busy pumping her fist with repeated chants “Yes!”, Dean let his eyes wander down to where Angel Radio’s broadcasting location was listed as...

Well shit.

Dean glanced over in time to see Charlie wiggling her ass in a victory dance that was frankly disturbing, before taking her computer back, unceremoniously shoving it back in her bag which she swung on her shoulder, ignoring the two pens that went flying out of the tear she had made earlier.

She picked up his keys from the hook at the wall and tossed them at him before plopping herself down in Baby’s passenger seat.

“It’s a two day drive Dean, get moving."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over in Mooseland...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and retconned Castiel's age cause I forgot to do the math in my head and realize that Dean is twenty-one in this so we shave off a couple of years, just for my peace of mind. It would've still be fine, they're both adults but I'm more comfortable like this so yeah.
> 
> Also this is wayyyyyyyyy shorter than part 1

Castiel often wondered whether he should consider it a blessing or a curse to have met his guide so young.

On the one hand, he had never even fathomed the idea of guide-anxiety, which happened to the overwhelming majority of the population as they anticipated finding their guide. While some people had to wait well into their thirties for their guides to show up like godsent, practically everyone except Castiel knew that his brother would be guiding him from literal minute one, and Castiel knew as soon as he was old enough to understand the very concept of guides.

On the other hand, the trade off for that was a nearly insufferable slog of years and years of waiting for Gabriel to feel any kind of inkling about his romantic situation.

Castiel happened to be Gabriel’s third charge, all of the previous ones being family, and it was a running joke that Gabriel was destined to lead each of his siblings before getting to breathe in the general direction of his own guide. Gabriel took it all in surprisingly good spirit, even once saying he wouldn’t be surprised if he was on his deathbed before his guide stormed in dragging his soulmate behind them.

And for Castiel it had been fine at first, his guide was more than just a guide after all, he was his brother, an individual in his own right and they were both busy with their own things, Castiel pushing through his last year of college and Gabriel pushing through life, but as their lives slowed and settled and there was zilch from Gabriel, Castiel began to get antsy.

It certainly didn’t help that Gabriel had already successfully guided both Hannah and Luci and done it twice as fast as he appeared to be with Castiel. Gabriel had always had particularly strong intuitions and very often, or at least that had been his experience leading his first two siblings. Many guides were jealous of how clearly he could understand and interpret his gut instincts which could be frustratingly vague and unclear for most guides.

But that simply wasn’t happening with Castiel and Gabriel admitted that he hadn’t felt anything at all, save for a small tug at the back of his concious one time when he and Hannah had been out for drinks. Castiel had only been a little bit livid at the fact that Gabriel hadn’t been sober enough to remember he should act upon those instincts and by the time he did he had completely lost track of what it was that he had felt and what it meant.

There was only one consolation in all this mess.

Gabriel knew exactly what his soulmate looked like.

It was quite the phenomenon, and Gabriel had been through a whirlwind of studies for it. As far as anyone knew nothing similar had ever been recorded before and everyone was fascinated by it.

It had happened first with Luci and back then everyone thought that Gabriel was joking around or pretending. They tried to trip him up, see if he got tangled up in his own ruse but he never did. He knew that Luci’ soulmate was a round-faced curly haired brunette with hazel eyes, small lips, a wide nose and slightly prominent cheekbones. He’d been declaring as such for years and when Luci finally met Meg everyone was more than a little spooked at the fact that Gabriel had been right.

It happened again with Hannah, and this time everyone listened intently when Gabriel described a man with brown hair, large straight nose, light brown eyes and cheekbones that could cut glass and nearly went batshit insane when he showed up but a year later a striking image of Gabriel’s perfect description.

Gabriel had been describing Castiel’s soulmate to him since they were in middle school and he had done anything but disappoint.

“He’s blond, the kind that gets darker with age, and his eyes are olive green. He’s got a strong stocky face and freckles that you can barely see.”

Castiel had been enamored with the image Gabriel conjured up since he first heard it.

Sometimes, if he was drunk enough he’d ask Gabriel to tell him again.

God he couldn’t wait.

Suddenly Gabriel slammed on the breaks, swerving violently to the side.

“What the fuck?!” Castiel cursed loudly as he suddenly came back to the present to find Gabriel sitting ramrod straight in the driver’s seat, eyes razor sharp with attention.

“Redheads.” He said and Castiel was about to yell at him for nearly killing them both but he turned to level a serious look at Castiel, the kind he never used, and it gave Castiel enough pause to let his brother talk.

“Have you seen any recently?”

Castiel arched an eyebrow.

“No.” He said flatly. Gabriel frowned as if this was unacceptable. He turned back to the wheel, licking his lip pensively.

“You sure?” He burst out again.

“Fairly. Why?”

Gabriel just frowned further, flexing his fingers where they still rested on the wheel in a white knuckled grip.

“I just got… I don’t know. A weird rush. I can’t really explain it.”

Castiel sat up straighter. Gabriel had never had an intuition he couldn’t immediately describe in ridiculously accurate detail and decipher in minutes.

“That’s not… you’ve never-”

“I know, I know.” Gabriel cut him off, looking out of the window as if he’d spot the coppery head he was looking for.

Everything was still in the car for several beats, before Gabriel sighed loudly and put the car back in drive.

“Did you go anywhere today?”

Castiel could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Gabriel was staring out with the kind of focus Castiel hadn’t seen on him since… well since he went out that fateful night to find Meg passed out drunk in an alleyway.

“Not really. I ordered my coffee to be delivered- the driver wasn’t a redhead-” Castiel cleared up, already seeing Gabriel open his mouth to ask. “And I worked the morning shift like usual-”

“Did you take any callers?”

“Only a couple.” Castiel confirmed. “A woman from Detroit asking to hear She Knew It Was You for the fourteenth time in a row and someone asking for you.”

Gabriel brushed this off. He’s glancing around the street every so often and Castiel found himself stupidly doing the same. The entire trip home was tense with anticipation, the kind Castiel had never had before. Gabriel was oozing determination and it was incredibly nerve wracking as Castiel waited with a baited breath to see if, for the first time, Gabriel wouldn’t know what to do with his intuition.

When he pulled into the driveway he didn’t immediately get out of the car. He just sat there, staring at the front door of the family house, before throwing the car in reverse and flooring the accelerator.

Castiel desperately hung onto the dashboard as Gabriel yanked on the wheel, narrowly avoiding jumping up on the sidewalk.

“Jesus Christ!” Castiel shouted but Gabriel’s focus was trained solely on the road as they nearly flew off it when Gabriel took a speed bump without slowing down at all. Castiel just closed his eyes and grit his teeth as he began to pray for the sweet release of death.

He could feel the car shudder as Gabriel intermittently took wild turns in between gunning down the neighborhood roads, occasionally missing mailboxes and trash cans by a hair’s width. Before making it out into the larger town roads where he really opened it up, seemingly taking random turns and veering in an entirely new direction every few minutes.

At this point Castiel knew they’d eventually wind up driving in circles, going about twenty five miles over the speed limit on empty roads in the middle of the night and astonishingly that didn’t make it very high on the list of things he wanted to do at the moment.

About five minutes later when Castiel was sure that he had died and gone to hell the brakes slammed and he lurched forward, choked back by his seat belt after barely avoiding breaking his skull open on the dashboard.

He was shaking all over but when he finally managed to open his eyes Gabriel was sitting in the driver’s seat looking devastated. Castiel looked out to the window to find they had literally stopped in the middle of a cross section.

“Gabriel.” Castiel had said, voice strained as his brother began muttering something to himself under his breath. “It’s here, it’s got to be here...”

“Gabriel, what the fu-”

And that’s when a car rammed into them from the side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My semester ends in exactly a week and I'm positively buzzing with excitement about it. What better way to celebrate than to post the final part of this... whatever the heck this is that I'm writing. You can tell school has fried my brain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when you crash your soulmate's car?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must ask for forgiveness posting this late, it was supposed to go up last week, but I miscalculated how much work I had procrastinated and I stayed up a solid thirty hours scrambling to get stuff done, after which I slept like a rock and then got tied up cleaning stuff around my house, the point is I'm sorry here it is.
> 
> I'm not a hundred percent pleased with it but I'm a lot more happy than I thought I would, so enjoy.

Ram was perhaps a bit of a strong word for it. Certainly it had felt like the end of the world when Castiel first felt the impact on his side but considering that all four people involved made it out unscathed and the cars were in relatively good shape he’d say his initial reaction might’ve been due to shock more than anything else.

Castiel’s door had received the impact and part of the locking mechanism must have gotten caught because it refused to open. Instead his brother hauled him out through the driver’s side, holding him steady by his arms when he saw that Castiel was a little dazed and unbalanced.

When he finally gathered himself, he found Gabriel looking over their car as he moved around and went to the other side and the other car.

“What in God’s name did you do to Baby?!”

Immediately alarmed at the thought that there might’ve been an infant involved in the crash, both Castiel and Gabriel rounded the car’s front and found a man in his early twenties shouting at a red head.

Gabriel felt something tingly crawl up the back of his neck, he was certain there was something he was missing, but he discarded it momentarily, though not before making a due note in his head. Castiel would really have his head if he found he ignored an intuition about him twice.

“Oh, Baby.” The man bemoaned, draped over the car’s side. Looking at it closer, Castiel could see it was an old model, though beautifully kept, except, of course, for the now crumpled hood and wrecked bumper.

Castiel couldn’t help it.

“You named the car… ‘Baby’?”

The man didn’t look up. “That’s none of your damned business!”

The redhead sighed, wiping her hands of the sweat that had formed when she had held the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip just moments earlier.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just-”

She stopped short, staring wide-eyed at Castiel. He frowned, momentarily confused before he clicked his tongue.

“You a fan of the show?” He asked, flashing her a smile that was only a little forced. He wasn’t recognized often and he liked keeping it that way.

“No, that’s not- I mean… He’s-”

While they were speaking Gabriel had approached Dean, first to passive aggressively remind him he didn’t ask about the state of the people he just crashed into and second to find out how they were going to do this. He had spotted the american license plate and it was already giving him a headache.

“Listen, buddy, I think we all have somewhere to be,” He didn’t. He was sure whatever fluke had possessed him earlier was now gone but he would have time to be pissed about that later.

However when the man looked up Gabriel instantly forgot anything else.

“You!” He shouted. 

He knew that face.

The man stared at him like he was completely insane. Granted, he might’ve looked it a bit.

He grabbed the man by the wrist and hauled him upright before dragging him back to where the redhead (it clicked in his head what both of the weird earlier rushes had been, and he wanted to face palm) was still trying to communicate to Cas.

“Hey, what do you think you’re-” The man tried throwing off his grip but Gabriel was not about to let him go.

He planted himself in front of the odd pair his brother and the red head made.

He knew Castiel would recognize him instantly, Gabriel had described him more than enough times and once again, this was the spitting image of his predictions.

The name came into his mind, as swift as wind and just as untraceable.

“Cas,” He interrupted his brother’s question about where they had been heading. Both he and the redhead turned to him and Castiel, getting his first good look at the man who crashed into him.

“This is Dean Winchester.”

There were perhaps, more formal words that guides tended to use when completing their duties. However it was late and dark and Gabriel was tired, he still had a car to figure out what the hell to do with and it seemed like the redhead was going nowhere fast.

Then finally she seemed to regain her sense.

“And this is Castiel née Novak.”

When Dean raised an eyebrow at her she shrugged. “Dean Novak isn’t really gonna work for me.”

Dean leveled a glare at her. She was looking far too smug about the whole thing.

But first.

God he was even more gorgeous in person, Dean couldn’t help thinking as he took a step forward mirrored by the man.

Maybe he’d let Charlie be smug.

Just for a bit.

Castiel reached out a hand and placed it on the side of Dean’s face and he practically melted on the spot. This was his soulmate all right, nothing else had ever felt as right as it did to be touching him.

“Hello,” said the deep gravelly voice he had been listening to announce pop songs the entire trip from Lebanon. He took his hand back and Dean could barely keep himself from reaching for it.

“Hey,” Dean said.

They stayed there, staring into each other’s eyes as Dean reached to snake his arms around the man’s shoulders, he couldn’t believe he’d survived this long without him.

From a few feet away Gabriel and Charlie started on, partly in pride, partly already coming up with the jokes they would make at their friends’ expense.

“So what are we gonna do about the cars?” Gabriel asked. Charlie shrugged.

“Dean’s gonna kill me for crashing Baby anyways.”

Gabriel’s eyebrow climbed up his forehead. “Does he actually call it, Baby?”

Charlie snorted.

It was a story they both told in excruciating detail for each and every milestone the two went through, including and continuing past their wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might end up making a mini spin off about how Gabriel finally meets his guide and then his soulmate, we'll see. The summer has endless possibilities.

**Author's Note:**

> In all technicality this should've been a one shot, but it's not done and I wanna post now so we're splitting it into three parts. See ya in week.


End file.
